Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Metal Gear 25th Anniversary Event

Konami was also celebrating 25 years of the Metal Gear franchise in Tokyo, and again extending announcements made there into PAX. Here's the good stuff that came from the event.

There was of course tons of merchandising announcements, a spiffy watch, hoodies, even thermal underwear! Then there were new toys, music collections, a wonderful art book collection in a nice package that sadly was in limited quantity, along with key chains, phone cases with Swarowski crystals.

Posters and images from the franchise covered the subways, there was a fun game people could play around Roppongi where dudes in camouflage outfits were hiding and you could take photos of them and send them to Konami to win prizes.

But enough about that, there is new artwork by Yoji Shinkawa teased along with some major new announcements! The first of 3 big ones was that there has been a major development with regards to the live action Hollywood movie adaptation of Metal Gear Solid! It's still being handled by Sony's Columbia Pictures, but a new producer is in charge, and that's Avi Arad! He's been in charge of a lot of Marvel's properties from Spider-Man to Iron Man to the Avengers. Past efforts to make a movie from Metal Gear seemed to have stalled when Konami got into a disagreement with the previous producer over the budget. Hopefully things will work out better now, though Avi Arad does have licences to make films out of games like Uncharted and Mass Effect for awhile and nothing substantial seems to have happened on those fronts...

New games were also announced! One a smaller affair known as 'Social Ops' developed by mobile developer GREE for cell phones. The other was a major announcement to highlight what Hideo Kojima and Konami have been working on - the 'FOX Engine' an internal company wide engine for creating multi-platform games for the current generation as well as in anticipation of the next generation. The game debuted for it was a new Metal Gear Solid title called 'Ground Zeroes'!

The game 'Ground Zeroes' is set to take place after the game 'Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker' and prior to the very first original MSX title 'Metal Gear.' It star Big Boss as the protagonist with returning characters from 'Peace Walker.' The game seems to bring the Peace Walker experience to the consoles by expanding it into an open-world-like level design that includes large areas and sandbox elements. Snake (Big Boss) can even drive vehicles and call in helicopter for support. The game's debut, which was also a debut for the FOX Engine has heavily impressed many for it's visuals which were rendered in real-time on a PC with specs set to mimic current generation consoles, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Kojima promises that the visuals will look just like it on the consoles! You can check it out for yourself in the demonstration video below which includes a lengthy real-time cutscene along with a few minutes of demo game play at the end!

The game is multi-platform and announced for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. No word on whether there are plans for a PC or WiiU version or even a version of the Vita handheld. But Metal Gear fans have lots to look forward to, and apparently the game isn't too far away!
Fans of Metal Gear can drop by our store to get their hands on Metal Gear toys and merchandise, including Yoji Shinkawa's art book 'The Art of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.'